What is fundamentally wrong with government today? In Against Leviathan, economist and historian, Robert Higgs, offers an unflinching critical analysis of government power in all its aspects: welfare, warfare, regulation, spying, and its imposition on personal liberties.
Against Leviathan combines an economist’s analytical scrutiny, an historian’s respect for the facts, and a refusal to accept the standard excuses and cruelties of government officialdom. Topics include Social Security, the paternalism of the FDA, the “War on Drugs”, the nature of political leadership, civil liberties, the conduct of the national surveillance state, and governmental responses to a continuing stream of “crises,” including domestic economic busts and foreign wars both hot and cold.
Against Leviathan is a thorough and penetrating critique, and a significant contribution in this current time of crisis and unchecked expansion of government power, and a worthy successor to the author’s seminal treatise Crisis and Leviathan.
![](https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_650w/s3/static-page/img/against_leviathan_higgs.jpg.webp?itok=XhgEmnSX 650w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_870w/s3/static-page/img/against_leviathan_higgs.jpg.webp?itok=I6oXEqlo 870w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1090w/s3/static-page/img/against_leviathan_higgs.jpg.webp?itok=KiGi1lSp 1090w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1310w/s3/static-page/img/against_leviathan_higgs.jpg.webp?itok=_w42a0p0 1310w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1530w/s3/static-page/img/against_leviathan_higgs.jpg.webp?itok=VbmltyyT 1530w)
![Robert Higgs](https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_650w/s3/static-page/img/Higgs_0.jpg.webp?itok=a7ya1xX6 650w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_870w/s3/static-page/img/Higgs_0.jpg.webp?itok=qzjv6476 870w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1090w/s3/static-page/img/Higgs_0.jpg.webp?itok=bVx_fnBM 1090w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1310w/s3/static-page/img/Higgs_0.jpg.webp?itok=GGH-R0Gk 1310w,https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_6_9_1530w/s3/static-page/img/Higgs_0.jpg.webp?itok=5VtMV9a7 1530w)
Dr. Robert Higgs is retired and lives in Mexico. He was a senior fellow in political economy for the Independent Institute and longtime editor of The Independent Review; he was also a senior fellow of the Mises Institute. He is the 2007 recipient of the Gary G. Schlarbaum Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Cause of Liberty, and the 2015 Murray N. Rothbard Medal of Freedom.